


Mortality

by GhostOfDorothyStreet



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-15
Updated: 2014-06-15
Packaged: 2018-02-04 16:58:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1786429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GhostOfDorothyStreet/pseuds/GhostOfDorothyStreet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes it's the smallest things that leave you thinking about the largest looming problems...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mortality

Lauren Mallard did not consider herself to be a shallow person. Beauty wasn’t as important as a strong work ethic, or a positive attitude, or total unwavering commitment to the company…

…But when she came across a new grey hair while giving her appearance a quick once over in one of the mirrors in the management office, she felt a sick surge of anxiety low in her chest.

Time, it consumed and devoured and while it didn’t exactly work in Night Vale its teeth still gnawed at the edges of the world, and of her life.

She twisted the strand of grey hair around her finger and the muscles of her hand tightened.

StrexCorp had little use for people above a certain age. The elderly were slow and unproductive and drain on valuable resources, it didn’t make sense to keep them around, at least not in their original form. But they were lucky, really, because coming to the end of your contract meant entering the arms of the Smiling God, earning your place in a perfect paradise that matched your perfect mind and soul.

That was the official stance.

Movement in the corner of her eye caught her attention, and she turned to see Daniel adjusting his tie in the next mirror over.

She’d known him for seven years, and he was still just as perfect as the day they met. Skin still airbrush flawless, hair still the exact same shade of dark chestnut, body still firm and toned under the perfectly tailored suit… and he still had that perfect smile that sent sparks down her spine.

It was one thing to know you would likely be outlived by a partner – anyone who took a younger lover faced that possibility – but it was something else to be with someone who was potentially immortal, who was frozen in time in a way a living human was not. It made you acutely aware of your own mortality; of the way your own body began to fail you.

And for Lauren there wasn’t even the comfort of knowing she would be immortalised in memory.

She’d seen it happen. Another android, another branch of the company… it was standard procedure. The androids were a valuable company resource, and it didn’t make sense to waste memory capacity on obsolete data about past employees. They were taken in, wiped blank, upgraded to a new version of their software, and sent out to a new assignment.

A few years and a few upgrades after she was gone, and Daniel wouldn’t even know her name anymore. A thorough enough overhaul and he wouldn’t even be her Daniel anymore.

“Lauren?”

“Hm?”

Daniel’s brow furrowed in concern.

“Is there a problem?”

Lauren dusted off her hands in a quick gesture, the grey hair falling away to the bloody carpet out of sight as she pasted on her brightest smile.

“No, nothing’s wrong,” she stepped up close to Daniel and leaned up to press a kiss to his cheek, “Come on, mustn’t keep Kevin waiting.”

***

Two weeks later, an angel that shouldn’t have existed broke down the walls of reality, Night Vale began to take back what it rightfully owned, and a family of cats got their karmic revenge against StrexCorp’s biomachines.

And despite the form her worries had taken, Lauren found that she was the one left behind to hold onto a memory.

**Author's Note:**

> I need to stop being depressing about these two... Also I figure the station is kind of FULL of mirrors under StrexCorp's rule, if only because they know Cecil is bothered by them.


End file.
